MRT: City Curfews Lifted; State Refuses to Identify Nursing Homes with Outbreaks; TX COVID Tests in Doubt; Nielsen Resigns; Hurd on Police Reform
Here's what you need to know in Texas today.
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BY: @MattMackowiak
MONDAY – 06/08/20
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TOP NEWS
George Floyd profile: "George Floyd: 'I'm gonna change the world',"The Houston Chronicle's Gabrielle Banks, Julian Gill, John Tedesco and Jordan Rubio -- "George Floyd is coming home on Tuesday to be with his mother, “Cissy,” his biggest fan, the center of his world.
Floyd missed her last breaths two years ago, while he was living in Minneapolis, trying to get a fresh start. Her name is tattooed on his torso.
On Tuesday, after the procession winds through Houston, he will come to rest in Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland, the same cemetery as his mother.
It is a heartbreaking homecoming for friends and family who describe Floyd as a dreamer who wanted desperately to be in the NBA, to make it big, to forge a new life away from the poverty and the violence. And despite his successes — becoming the first of his siblings to graduate high school and go to college — there were setbacks, arrests, and, in the end, a death that galvanized protests across the globe.
He became the catalyst for a pivotal moment in civil rights history — the day a black man was fatally pinned beneath the knee of a white police officer, his plight recast on millions of screens around the world. Every living U.S. president, the Dalai Lama and the pope spoke his name and condemned his death following an arrest for allegedly trying to spend a fake $20 bill.
“Everybody in the world knows who George Floyd is today,” said Reginald Smith, Floyd’s friend for more than 35 years. “Presidents, kings and queens, they know George Floyd.”" Houston Chronicle
"DFW becomes the world’s busiest airport during COVID-19 downturn,"The Dallas Morning News' Kyle Arnold -- "DFW International Airport was the world’s busiest airport in May, leaping ahead of other major travel hubs that have downsized during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DFW, still running a fraction of the flights it did a few months ago, operated 12,132 flights in May, far ahead of the No. 2 airport, Chicago O’Hare, according to aviation data company OAG. O’Hare, the biggest hub for Chicago-based United Airlines, had 8,596 flights, OAG said.
“Although we have no passenger numbers, I suspect that it was also the busiest from a passenger number given the large differential,” said OAG senior analyst John Grant.
For DFW, it’s been a matter of shrinking less than other airports have. In February, before the COVID-19 pandemic starting hitting the U.S. air industry hard, DFW Airport had about 26,000 landing and departing flights, behind both Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Chicago O’Hare.
Almost all of DFW’s traffic is thanks to Fort Worth-based American Airlines, which operated 11,109 flights out of DFW in May, said American spokesman Ross Feinstein." Dallas Morning News
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Texas cities lift curfews instituted after violent protests," via AP-- "Officials in Dallas and San Antonio on Saturday lifted nighttime curfews that had been put in place after several days of demonstrations that saw multiple eruptions of violence and vandalism.
In Dallas, the curfew was lifted after consultation with police Chief U. Renee Hall and the City Council, said City Manager T.C. Broadnax.
“We’ve seen many moving and peaceful protests over the last few days, some of which I joined,” Broadnax said in a statement. “We heard feedback from residents ready to open and conduct business in central Dallas and we agree it’s time. The city of Dallas and the Dallas Police Department continue to respect and protect the rights of peaceful demonstrators.”
Broadnax said Dallas residents were safer staying at home due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The curfew had been announced May 31 by Hall after violent protests took place in downtown Dallas and other areas over the death of George Floyd and the treatment of black people by police.
In San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nirenberg rescinded the curfew in the downtown business district, which had been put in place on Wednesday.
“The San Antonio Police Department remains committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of all who peacefully protest while also ensuring the safety of people and protection of property. I hope this will be a strong foundation for an ongoing conversation about the relationship law enforcement agencies have with our community,” said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus.
On Saturday afternoon, about 300 people gathered peacefully in front of San Antonio police headquarters and were set to march later in the day.
In Austin, Police Chief Brian Manley was part of a group of officers who kneeled on Saturday in an act of solidarity alongside protesters outside police headquarters for a few minutes.
Manley has come under intense criticism for his department’s handling of protests in Austin and officers’ use of tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds.
At least two Austin City Council members have called for Manley’s resignation. During an emergency council meeting Thursday, Manley said his agency will no longer use bean bag rounds with crowds." AP
"Texas stays mum as feds reveal which nursing homes have coronavirus outbreaks,"The Houston Chronicle's John Tedesco, Emily Foxhall, Matt Dempsey and Jordan Rubio -- "As Texas health officials refuse to say which nursing homes are suffering coronavirus outbreaks, a federal agency released its own data this week that identifies 150 facilities in Texas with COVID-19 cases and 72 nursing homes where residents died.
The preliminary data released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a federal agency that regulates nursing homes, offers the first nationwide snapshot of how each facility is coping with a disease that is particularly dangerous for elderly residents.
In Texas, more than 1,920 nursing home residents had COVID-19 as of late May, and 321 died from the virus, according to the data. Mountain View Health & Rehabilitation in El Paso had the most confirmed cases in the state with 91 patients — a rate of 700 cases per 1,000 residents, putting it in the top 25 facilities in Texas with the highest rates of infection among residents, according to an analysis by the Houston Chronicle.
Mountain View also had 35 employees who contracted COVID-19, according to the data, but didn’t report any staffing shortages. A message left with the nursing home operator wasn’t returned Friday.
Nationally, 60,000 nursing home residents had COVID-19, and nearly 26,000 of them died. Facilities with low health and safety rankings by regulators were more likely to have large numbers of coronavirus infections, the federal agency said in a statement.
The coronavirus data was created under a new federal requirement for nursing homes to report COVID-19 infections, deaths and shortfalls in staffing or protective equipment to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Residents and advocates have repeatedly called for more transparency on how and where COVID-19 was spreading in nursing homes.
Federal officials note there are limitations in the data, which is expected to be updated weekly. Not every nursing home has complied with the new reporting measures. Some reports were incomplete. And the unavailability of coronavirus tests might prevent facilities from providing an accurate count of coronavirus cases, officials noted.
But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the data will grow more accurate over time as more nursing home operators learn the reporting requirements, and a spokeswoman said the data will be a valuable tool to the public during an unprecedented crisis.
“The importance of ongoing transparency and information sharing has proven to be one of the keys to the battle against this pandemic,” the spokeswoman said.
Advocates for nursing home residents said the federal database reveals that far more needs to be done to protect the vulnerable.
“These numbers show what we have known for months, that COVID-19 disproportionately impacts the elderly with chronic diseases and the dedicated staff who care for them,” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living. “Today’s report validates the need for the assistance that nursing homes have been calling for since the beginning of this pandemic.”
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has received more than two dozen requests for its own database of coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and long term care facilities. But the agency told the Texas attorney general’s office that privacy laws prohibit the release of the information — even though federal officials announced that they planned to release their own version of the nursing home data.
The health commission didn’t respond to questions Friday, but a spokeswoman previously told the Chronicle that the agency is balancing transparency with legal and privacy constraints.
“HHSC is working to release as much information as we are legally permitted to share publicly, in compliance with state and federal law,” spokeswoman Christine Mann said in an email.
A message left with a spokesman for Gov. Greg Abbott wasn’t returned Friday. Abbott in May directed all nursing homes residents and staff to be tested for COVID-19, and that initiative was nearly finished Friday, with testing completed at 1,174 of 1,223 facilities.
State officials released statistics summarizing the confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths at nursing homes. As of June 5, Texas health officials said there were 466 nursing homes with confirmed COVID-19 patients and more than 4,300 cases. There have been 713 resident deaths." Houston Chronicle
"Some coronavirus tests in doubt in Texas after lab turns up abnormal number of positives,"The Dallas Morning News' Allie Morris -- "The state is no longer using a laboratory that has tested 14,000 Texans for the coronavirus, after it turned up an abnormal number of positive results during state-ordered testing at nursing homes and in community surveillance.
The Health and Human Services Commission said Friday it has contacted a “small number” of affected facilities to recommend they do not act on the test results by quarantining or isolating residents.
It is not clear whether all the lab’s test results will be thrown out from state tallies or just a portion. A spokeswoman for HHSC declined to name the lab, saying only that it was a private one.
The announcement comes in response to questions from The Dallas Morning News about tests in Scurry County in West Texas, where state-run testing found 39 people at a nursing home tested positive for COVID-19. None showed symptoms, County Judge Dan Hicks said. When the facility received the results earlier this week and tested residents again at a local hospital, all were negative, he said.
“We’re just glad that we were able to catch it early and figure out what was really going on,” Hicks said Friday. “We tested them twice, within 24 hours, and it was all negatives both times.”" Dallas Morning News
"In liberal Austin, protests unleash violence — then an identity crisis,"The Washington Post's Peter Holley -- "The people’s republic of Austin is reeling. As protests against police brutality have swept the nation in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the laid-back liberal oasis in Central Texas has witnessed some of the most acute violence in the country — a development that shocked many residents, as well as the city’s liberal leadership.
At a six-hour-long emergency city council meeting to review police protocols Thursday night, hundreds of Austinites berated city leaders and called for the police chief’s ouster. An editorial in the Austin American-Statesman said the police response “compounded the outrage and pain that brought protesters to the streets to begin with.” Reached by phone, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) said videos of the violence made him “incredibly uncomfortable.”
“It didn’t seem right,” he added.
But the shock did not extend to the east side of Interstate 35, a concrete rampart that has for decades sliced this community in half, both physically and culturally. In traditionally black and Hispanic neighborhoods on the city’s east side, residents said the only thing surprising about police turning their weapons on the public is that anyone is still surprised when it occurs.
“The idea that this is a progressive city is just a liberal fantasy,” said Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP." Washington Post
"Acevedo, joined by families of two people killed by police, defends withholding body camera tapes in fatal shootings,"The Houston Chronicle's Dylan McGuinness -- "Family members of two people killed by Houston police officers in recent months publicly defended Police Chief Art Acevedo’s decision to withhold body camera footage of the shootings from public view.
The news conference came as Acevedo drew criticism this week for withholding the footage. Some at Tuesday’s rally for George Floyd chanted “release the tapes” as Mayor Sylvester Turner addressed the crowd. Turner said Saturday he would ask a task force on police reform he announced this week to establish criteria for when to release footage in future cases.
Houston police officers shot and killed six people in late April and May, drawing public scrutiny and leading to a private meeting between Acevedo and several minority City Council members. Most, if not all, of the people killed were people of color, and police say all were armed or appeared to be armed with varying kinds of weapons — guns, a piece of rebar, a BB-gun or a stun gun — during the confrontations.
Families in three of those cases have now asked for footage to be withheld, Acevedo said. A relative in another case has not yet come to police to view the footage herself, and in two cases Acevedo has been unable to either contact or find family members of those killed, he said." Houston Chronicle
#TXLEGE
"Black lawmakers say virus requests unanswered in Texas,"CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi and Kelly Mena -- "Three months into the coronavirus outbreak in Texas, black lawmakers say Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and state health officials have fallen short in addressing their pleas for better racial data and efforts to decrease COVD-19′s decidedly deadly toll on black Americans.
The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday that since the first positive coronavirus case in Texas in March, black legislators have asked for a task force, a more accurate count of the disease’s impact on black and brown Texans and increased testing in highly affected black and brown neighborhoods.
Texas has struggled to track racial health disparities. Many of the more than 70,000 confirmed cases and 1,700 deaths on the state’s case dashboard do not have information on race and ethnicity.
As of Friday, the state had still not received the race or ethnicity of 79% of the cases reported to the state and 63% of the reported deaths.
“We have been asking — myself, my colleagues and people of color — have been asking the government with no answers,” state Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, told the newspaper. “It’s like we don’t exist.”
Miles said he was able to get state-provided COVID-19 testing in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods considered hot spots in his district in mid-May. But that was more than two months after Abbott declared a state of disaster.
Abbott spokesman John Wittman told the newspaper that the he state will significantly ramp up testing in black and Hispanic neighborhoods on Monday. He did not provide additional details. In April, Abbott said he was working with lawmakers to better respond to the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on African Americans.
Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, said local health authorities conduct their own case and death investigations, which they then turn over to the state. Anton said those investigations “take time to complete depending upon the circumstances” and some do not include race and ethnicity data because people choose not to answer the question.
Anton said the state had enough data to identify trends. For example, blacks make up 16% of the cases in Texas even though they’re only 12% of the population. But with so much of that data completed as “unknown,” the actual number of black cases could be much higher than the state’s." AP
2020
"Texas county GOP chair-elect won't assume office amid backlash for posting MLK quote with a banana,"CNN's Veronica Stracqualursi and Kelly Mena -- "A Texas Republican county chairman-elect said Saturday he won't assume office amid backlash over posting a controversial image of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote with a banana in the picture.
Keith Nielsen, the GOP chairman-elect in Harris County, announced in a Facebook post that he would be stepping aside and would not be taking office in August. Harris County encompasses Houston and the surrounding area.
"I have spent my entire adult life supporting conservative candidates and causes and I am grateful for the thousands of supporters who have reached out to me over the last several days," Nielsen's post began.
"I regret that I must step aside as Chairman-elect of the Harris County Republican Party and will not be taking office on Aug. 3rd. I will continue to stand up for the values that have made our country great...'Faith, family and freedom.' Dr. King's quote is as relevant today as when it was delivered. 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'" he added." CNN
"Texas Senate debate bares rifts between MJ Hegar, Royce West on fracking, reparations, abolishing ICE,"The Dallas Morning News' Robert Garrett — "Democratic rivals MJ Hegar and Royce West put slight distance between themselves on such controversial proposals as a fracking ban, racial reparations and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a U.S. Senate race debate late Saturday.
Hegar, the decorated Air Force rescue helicopter pilot and former congressional candidate from Round Rock, said she worries that a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing would hurt working families.
“We can fix it without having an economic crisis here in Texas,” she said of climate change during the hourlong debate, which aired on 14 Texas TV stations owned by Irving-based Nexstar Media Group.
West, who has represented Dallas in the Texas Senate for nearly three decades, though, said he would support a moratorium on fracking — and might back an outright ban, if scientific research confirms grave harm to the water supply.
“If indeed it’s harming the water, I would ban it,” he said. The pair met as part of the Texas Democratic Convention, which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic." Dallas Morning News
"We must 'face the deep open wound of systemic racism' Biden tells Texas Democrats,"The Houston Chronicle's Jeremy Wallace -- "Invoking the killing of George Floyd and the ravages of COVID-19, former Vice President Joe Biden told Texas Democrats that it has never been clearer why he must defeat President Donald Trump in November.
“I said from the beginning: The very soul of this nation is at stake,” Biden said at the party’s online state convention Saturday. “That’s why I’m running for president and why I stand united with every single Democrat behind our mission to beat Donald Trump and restore real leadership to the White House.”
Biden said the “horrifying killing” of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has forced the nation to face an uncomfortable truth.
“It’s time for us to face the deep, open wound of systemic racism in the nation,” Biden said, declaring that he’s the candidate who can set the stage for that. “Nothing about this is going to be easy or comfortable if we simply allow this wound to scab over once more without treating the underlying injury. We’ll never truly heal.”
Biden is expected in Houston on Tuesday for Floyd’s funeral.
His remarks built upon a speech he made four days earlier in Philadelphia as racial injustice and police reform have redefined a presidential race that polls show has tightened even in Texas, which no Republican presidential candidate has lost in 44 years.
Trump questioned Biden’s commitment to criminal justice reform earlier in the week, reminding Americans that Biden’s work on the 1994 crime bill sent more black people to jail.
On Friday, Trump invoked Floyd’s name in calling for all people to be treated fairly by police.
“Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, color, gender or creed,” he said at a briefing at the White House. “They have to receive fair treatment from law enforcement.”
While Trump and Republicans have used the past two weeks to pivot to a law-and-order message to rally conservatives, Biden and Democrats have used it as a call to action for their supporters to champion communities of color.
“If we can make our country work for the most vulnerable Americans; if we can unrig our economy so that it benefits every single person and not only a select few, then we can live up to the promise of America,” former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro told Texas Democrats before Biden spoke." Houston Chronicle
"Harris County sends mail ballot applications to every 65-and-over registered voter,"The Houston Chronicle's Zach Despart -- "Harris County this week sent mail ballot applications for the July primary runoff to every voter 65 and older, interim County Clerk Christopher Hollins announced.
The move comes as Harris County is preparing for a significant expansion of mail voting during the novel coronavirus pandemic as some residents are wary of voting at potentially crowded polling sites.
Hollins, who started Monday after being appointed to replace former clerk Diane Trautman, said he wants to provide a safe avenue for voting amid the pandemic. Hollins sent applications to 376,840 voters, about 16 percent of the voter roll.
“Our goal is to keep our voters 65 and up safe amid the current health crisis by giving them the opportunity to vote from home,” Hollins said in a statement Thursday.
This is the first time the clerk’s office has sent mail ballot applications to voters. unsolicited. Previously, voters had to request one on their own. The mailer cost $210,000, Hollins spokeswoman Rosio Torres-Segura said.
Ten percent of ballots were cast by mail in the first round of primary voting in March. The clerk’s office said in May that requests for mail ballots had increased this year.
Republican State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a regular critic of local Democrats, issued a statement calling the sending of applications to every elderly voter in a low-turnout election a waste of money. He said in primary elections, the Democratic and Republican parties should perform that role.
“The moral of the story is, just because government can do something doesn’t mean elected officials shouldn’t have the common sense not to do it,” Bettencourt said in a statement.
The Texas Election Code states voters are eligible for mail ballots if they meet any of three conditions: they are 65 or older, will be out of the county during the election period or have a disability.
Whether fear of contracting coronavirus through in-person coronavirus can constitute a disability is a matter of several lawsuits. The Texas Supreme Court ruled last week that lack of immunity to the virus by itself did not constitute a disability, though it would be one of several factors to meet that standard. A similar federal lawsuit is ongoing.
The Harris County Attorney’s office said it will not challenge any voter who claims a disability on a mail ballot application, effectively opening the door for all of the county’s 2.4 million voters to vote by mail.
Before she left office, Trautman secured $12 million from Commissioners Court to allow the county clerk to send a mail ballot to any voter who requests one for the July primary runoff and November general elections.
The primary runoff is July 14. The last day to register to vote for that election is June 15. Mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day." Houston Chronicle
TEXANS IN DC
Will Hurd guest column: "What Congress can do about Police abuse," via The Wall Street Journal-- "While marching in solidarity with George Floyd’s family and 60,000 others in Houston, I saw that you can be outraged by a black man getting murdered in police custody, thankful that law enforcement is enabling our First Amendment rights, and angry that criminals are treading on American values by looting, rioting and killing police.
I also saw it isn’t only the African-American community that is committed to changing a culture in which a black man is more than twice as likely as a white man to die in police custody.
When I was 15 and learning to drive, my dad had to teach me if I ever got pulled over by the police, I was to turn on the light in the car, roll down my window, place my hands on the seal so the police could see my hands, and not make any movement unless I tell the officer and receive consent. The culture in which a black dad had to teach his son a lesson that could save his life isn’t completely extinguished.
Leaders at every level have a responsibility to confront this injustice. Here are three things Congress can do:
• Ensure that federal law-enforcement grants go only to departments following best policing practices. The way we solve these broader issues isn’t by defunding the police but by ensuring they do better. The Justice Department provides almost $2 billion a year to state and local law enforcement. It’s conditioned on compliance with federal civil-rights laws, but that hasn’t been enough to prevent unarmed black men and women from dying in police custody.
I’ve learned from police officers and community leaders across the country that insufficient training increases the risk of escalation, and practices like community policing haven’t been uniformly adopted. Some 10% of police calls and more than 25% of fatal police shootings involve a person with mental illness, for instance, yet most states require officers to undergo less than eight hours of training in handling these situations.
• Empower police chiefs to fire bad officers and keep them off the force permanently. A Washington Post study estimated that between 2006 and 2017 the nation’s largest departments fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct, yet 451 were later reinstated—most after arbitration.
• Clarify federal law to ensure officers can be held accountable in court for violating civil rights. A legal doctrine known as qualified immunity shields police and other government employees from liability for official acts. This protection seems sensible in some cases, but it often shields abusive officers.
All the chiefs of major police departments have condemned Floyd’s killing, and many officers are marching in solidarity with peaceful protesters. The overwhelming majority of officers put themselves in harm’s way every day to protect and serve our communities, and anyone who attacks or kills a police officer should be found and prosecuted.
We also owe it to the men and women who protect us to prevent a few bad cops from soiling the reputation of the entire force.
Whether your skin is black or your uniform is blue, people shouldn’t feel targeted in this country. National pain from recent events has tested one of my core beliefs about America: More unites us as a country than divides us. But what I saw this past week only strengthened this belief." Wall Street Journal
REMAINDERS
INDYCAR: "Dixon wins again at Texas in Indycar's delayed season opener"AP
'MACK ON POLITICS' PODCAST
LATEST "MACK ON POLITICS" PODCAST: The George Floyd killing and resulting protests are the subject of the 191st episode.
Our guest is social commentator and activist Toure, who hosts two podcasts, “The Toure Show” and “Democracyish”.
In this conversation we take stock of this national moment, examine real solutions to police brutality, consider whether police union contracts are part of the problem, and probe the concepts of systemic racism and white privilege. Finally, we discuss how the protests will end.
Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and on the web at http://www.MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com.
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